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WHERE ARE MY HORNS! 









WHERE ARE MY HORNS? 



A QUESTION 



FOR THE WISE AND FOOLISH. 



\jA vv>- 




BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED AND EDITED BY ADAM HAMILTON. 

1871. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

ADAM HAMILTON, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Stereotyped by Alfred Mudge & Son, 
34 School Street, Boston. 



LC Control Number 




[ 



tmp96 027653 



WHERE ARE MY HORNS ? 



the devil a saint. 

Most Liberal and Christian Reader: 

I, Lucifer, the archangel that was wont 
to sit upon the right hand of God, do now 
address thee, and crave thy attention to the 
following words in defence of myself and 
my mission upon earth. 

With singular thoughtlessness and error, 
considering their gifts and opportunities, a 
vast number of people, of all nations and 
climes, to the manifest confusion of reason, 
persist in identifying me with the direful 
spectres which were born of the ignorance 
and fear of primeval man. They still call 
me great serpent, archfiend, dragon, Belial, 



4 Where are my Horns? 

a horned, cloven-footed beast, and nnctiously 
dwell upon these names ; intimating thereby 
that I alone am the author of all the miser- 
ies which their own wickedness has brought 
upon them; that if I would only die to- 
morrow, they would then be saints, no mat- 
ter how great their violations of nature's 
law to-day. Now, this misunderstanding of 
my character was not unexpected by me, 
the Deity himself having forewarned me of 
it long before I, at his request, left my seat 
in the celestial congress, and descended 
upon the Earth for the benefit of man. But 
what need I care, I who have occupied so high 
a position in the divine favor, for the praise 
or blame of the ignorant and rude, the en- 
lightened reader may well inquire. Noth- 
ing, absolutely nothing, permit me to re- 
spond. I regard their opinion of me merely 
as a sign of their growth in the knowledge 
of good and evil, which it has been my mis- 



The Devil a Saint. 5 

sion to promote from the beginning of 
time. Like the star-crowned night, great 
in my darkness, I bestow my favor upon 
all alike, indifferent to the comments of 
both poet and boor. Therefore I bear thee 
no malice, Christian friend, for all the ill 
thou hast been pleased to say of me ; I im- 
pute it to the ignorance which is a necessary 
but transient condition of thy being. In 
this respect, the Deity and I are of one ac- 
cord, however much thy understanding of 
Jewish history may allege to the contrary. 
To be misunderstood, to be persecuted and 
reviled, means to be great and good, as may 
testify the lives of all the heroes of thy 
race, of its redeemers from the bondage in 
which it has been held by Superstition and 
Sin. 

Thou wilt doubtless wonder, and be moved 
unto laughter or tears, at the presumption I 
appear to manifest in thus attempting, in the 



6 Where are my Horns? 

face of thy beloved Orthodoxy, to deny the 
guilt which thou canst not disconnect from 
my name, without being deemed a heretic 
or infidel vile. According to the best of 
thy belief, I must go on from infamy to 
infamy, and side with folly and vice unto 
mine own eternal confusion, as the punish- 
ment of my first crime, viz., the ambition 
that led to the disturbance of the peace of 
Heaven. Oh, the cunning and cupidity of 
men in high position! How natural it was 
for kings and priests, and other privileged 
members of society, to dread the inconven- 
ient ambition of their subordinates, and call 
in the aid of Superstition to repress it! 
Thus dissent from the established Authority, 
no matter how just and reasonable, has been 
denounced by them as the worst of crimes, 
— the crime of the Archfiend himself, whose 
deplorable fate is a warning to all who 
would fain follow his example, and aspire to 



A Hard Fate. 7 

the liberty which is above their condition. 
Positively it is too bad. Heaven might have 
been a little more indulgent to me,* — not 
even a bottom to the pit into which I am to 
be finally pitched. How much more merci- 
ful Jupiter than Jehovah! Prometheus 
was vouchsafed vultures for his torment, 
but I, poor Devil, am doomed to torment 
myself, to nourish within mine own bosom 
a never-dying worm. Oh, Superstition, Su- 
perstition, cries the ardent son of Reason, 
how long art thou, under thy assumed 
names of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, to 
trample upon the liberties of my race, 
thou friend of the tyrant and the charlatan, 
and upholder of what thou callest their 
divine rights? And he gets no reply. 

But I am inclined to treat the perver- 
sion of the facts of my early history with 
more indulgence than the unreasonable 



* This caused great merriment^ in tfnose highest celestial 
circles, at my expense. / * 



8 Where are my Horns? 

accusation that I am to blame for all the 
ills of life and none of its benefits. "What 
a singular being I would be, if one tithe 
of the stories afloat about me were true! 
The general impression is, that I exist 
only in order to tempt the unwary into 
my power, and torment them afterwards, 
either to gratify an unnatural taste for suf- 
fering, or on account of a certain grudge 
that I owe the Almighty. How depraved 
the imagination must have been to devise so 
vile a fable ! To those conversant with my 
real object in existence, it would not seem 
more absurd, if one accused Plato or Paul 
with exerting themselves to catch flies for 
the pleasure of spearing them with red-hot 
needles. 

The ancient heathens, in their speculations 
concerning my character, were far more 
intelligent than modern Christians. The 
former, with remarkable insight into the 



Mephistqpkeles. 9 

nature of things, called me God, a dark one 
it is true, but not necessarily bad on that 
account. Pluto, not even the most bigoted 
can deny, was a hero compared with the 
scurvy Devil of the present day, who, by 
the way, if Christians are so totally de- 
praved* as they call themselves, must have 
considerable leisure to gratify his infernal 
tastes. 

It is true, I frankly admit, that, in so far 
as I represent the Power of Evil according 
to popular understanding thereof, I am not 
termed the Devil without justice. But the 
error is here. I am said to be evil for the sake 
of evil itself, with no regard whatever to 
the goodness which all evil eventually brings 
to pass. Mephistopheles is an excellent 
representative of this character. But he, 
of all Devils, both ancient and modern, next 
to Belial and Beelzebub, is the one whom I 

* You cannot spoil a bad egg. 



I 



10 Where are my Horns? 

least resemble. He claims to be part of the 
power which invariably doth good in spite 
of its constant endeavors to do evil, while I 
claim to be of the power which is obliged 
to do evil in its constant efforts to do good. 
My peculiar element is the same as his, viz., 
sin, ruin, death; but, mark thou, this ele- 
ment is mine only, in so far as it serves the 
cause of its opposite, virtue, life, happiness. 
Mephistopheles would sink the ship because 
it is sound and good; I, because it is no 
longer safe n»»seaworthy. He is destruc- 
tive out of spite to goodness in general ; I 
am so from a sense of duty. My experi- 
ence with Job sufficed, if I ever needed 
the admonition, to assure me that evil can- 
not prevail against the good, that tempta- 
tion to them is a test only serving to reveal 
the purity of the metal of which they have 
been made. If Mephistopheles had known 
better, he would not have meddled with 



Black is White, is it? ' 11 

Faust. Unsuccessful sin is the meanest 
thing in the world. 

My real character is not unknown to the 
thinker, who, although appearances are 
against me, does not hesitate to call good, frWX 
because goodness is dependent upon me for 
its being, precisely as light is upon dark- 
ness. It is impossible to conceive of the one 
without the other. Being necessary, then, 
to goodness, must not I too be good? But 
I need not dwell upon this metaphysical 
argument in my favor; sh .Id, however, 
the reader fail to understand it, I refer him 
to a more popular exponent* of the new 
philosophy, for a more comprehensive state- 
ment of the matter. 

I never have been in favor of self- 
praise, but here I trust the reader will 
find it pardonable, considering how few 
friends I have to advocate my cause. 
Accordingly, however egotistical, vile, or 

* Hegel. 



ESS 



12 Where are my Horns 9 

villanous the vulgar call me, I do not 
hesitate to declare myself a wise and 
beneficent being in my peculiar sphere of 
action. The Bible itself verifies my claims. 
How necessary I was to exhibit Job in his 
true character, in order that the world might 
be benefited by so glorious an example of 
patience; and how useful I became in the 
Christian scheme of salvation, inasmuch as 
I was selected to tempt Jesus of Nazareth 
into celebrity, and get Judas Iscariot to 
betray him for thirty pieces of silver. The 
Church militant will surely acknowledge 
my services here, even if she denies them 
everywhere else. But, alas ! neither I nor 
any other supernatural being can depend 
upon her for candor. Before deciding any 
important question, such as those of the 
infallibility of popes, the deification of vir- 
gins, vicarious atonements, miracles, etc., 
she makes a point of placing her conscience 



"As ye /Sow, so shall ye Heap." 13 

in the care of St. Peter or St. Paul, as if 
she deemed her rationalistic opponents 
spiritual thieves. I know her of old; she 
has stolen the theology of the Jews, and 
after adulterating it with various paganisms 
vaunted it as an original commodity. She 
seems to have forgotten the adage, " 111 got, 
ill gone." Her members still divide and 
subdivide into different parties, and fight 
with one another, over the articles of the 
plunder, abusing, maiming, and even mur- 
dering one another, in order to obtain the 
precedence. I, to speak in a human man- 
ner, am sorry that I have had so large a 
share in ecclesiastical strife, and would will- 
ingly give it up now, if the Deity so de- 
creed. But I as well as man must conform 
to the Divine Will in all things, even unto 
the perpetuation of the most violent theo- 
logical feuds, irrespective entirely of my 
private likes and dislikes. The cause of 



14 Where are my Horns? 

truth demands the decay of all imperfect 
religious systems, and I am delighted to 
insure it; for the loss of the one is the gain 
of the other. The trials of men, according 
to some divines, are the angels of God, and 
am I not an intimate associate of those 
angels? Why, then, am I not numbered in 
the holy throng? How can people deem me 
so great an exception to the rule? Oh, the 
stupidity of man! "Without me he had 
never eaten the bright fruit of the Tree of 
Knowledge of good and evil, and conse- 
quently failed to become the progressive 
being he now is. Without me he were still 
the unconscious animal which he was in the 
beginning. And yet he will not recognize 
how long-suffering and patient I have shown 
myself in promoting him from stage to stage 
of his eventful career. To him I still seem 
an arbitrary and capricious monster, tempt- 
ing and tormenting every one at random, 



Nemesis? 15 

and chuckling over my paltry successes, 
like a small author, politician, or trader. He 
cannot see in me the never-failing avenger, 
whose mission it is to intensify iniquity for 
the speedier destruction of the same. But 
why intensify it rather than nip it in the 
bud, the reader stops to inquire. Similia 
similibus curantur, I answer. Evil is gene- 
rally overcome by its own vileness. The 
consequences of vice make many virtuous, 

£ in spite of themselves. The more hurtful 
the fire, the greater the effort to put it out. 
Like many things in this world, in order 
to be thoroughly understood, I must be 
viewed from two points, — from the indivi- 
dual or separate view, and from the whole 
or universal view. From the former, I must 
say I do not appear to advantage ; in fact, I 
may as well give in, I appear wholly and 

£ insufferably bad. But, mark you, I am not 
really so, i&f more than the oar, half-im- 



16 Where are my Hoims? 

mersed in the water, is bent. For the mo- 
ment I am seen in my universal relations, 
my personality seems to fuse itself into 
that of the Deity. What is the difference 
between a visitation of the Devil and a vis- 
itation of Providence? A storm is hated 
and dreaded by the tourist and his family, 
but how welcome it is to the farmer and his 
parched fields. w It is an ill wind that 
blows nobody good." Every now and then 
Nature has, as it were, to wrench herself 
into order, when anything seems to go 
wrong in her economy; hence the earth- 
quake, the tornado, and the storm. It is 
the same with the human race, as in the 
case of the religious wars, revolutions, re- 
bellions, and every conceivable commotion 
in the communities of men. How they all 
tend to the progress and improvement of the 
race ! and yet I am accused of being the 
prime mover in them all, for the mere pleas- 



The use of Evil. 17 

ure of tormenting a certain percentage of 
human souls in hell, out of spite to the God 
who banished me from the realms of light 
on account of my diabolical ambition. The 
human mind must be developed in every 
conceivable direction; hence the innumer- 
able forms of disease, disaster, and death are 
there, to call forth the strength and energy 
required to obviate their causes The 
greater the dangers and obstacles to be 
overcome, the greater the bravery and per- 
severance required to overcome them, and 
these cannot be too urgently called for. 
The human race thrives better in compara- 
tively barren and cold districts, where the 
price of living is the hardest work consist- 
ent with health. 

Every great calamity has its use. The 
Cholera, for instance, is dreadful in the ex- 
treme. But how are certain people to 
realize their filthiness without his horrible 



— - 



18 Where are my Horns? 

admonitions? Birds of a feather inevitably 
flock together. How clean the Cholera 
makes the streets, and what other delightful 
sanitary measures his greeting makes cities 
institute! Intemperance, too, is deplorable 
in itself, but his ravages bring people to 
their senses more rapidly than eloquence of 
all the pulpits in the world, and, inasmuch as 
it does so, is it not a good thing? As I 
have already said, I do not like self-praise ; 
but, in this connection, I feel called upon to 
say, there is no person in the Universe who, 
considering his opportunities, has done more 
to make mankind realize the consequences 
of sin, than T, Devil though I be. Painful 
personal Experience is admitted by all to be 
the best teacher, even if his tuition is the 
most expensive. And has he not co-oper- 
ated with me to the best of his ability? 
"Were I not conscious of the amount of 
srood I do together with him, I would die at 



The Devil's Bogs. 19 

the aspect of the woe, of which I feel 
myself to be the partial cause. I am the 
faithful servant of a Higher Power, the 
sentinel, as it were, of the domains which 
are forbidden to his creatures; and although 
in the fulfilment of my duty I set the dogs 
upon intruders, I glory in the act, for I 
know it to be for their ultimate good. But 
I never proceed to extremities, without first 
giving the intruders a fair warning. Dys- 
pepsia, for example, is the dog that watches 
the land of Gluttony. How he snarls and 
snaps and growls, and gently bites, before he 
springs upon him who has incurred his 
wrath. And so it is with all the others. 
Not before all warnings have proved una- 
vailing, is the transgressor seriously man- 
gled as an example to the million. But 
wherefore so many examples? Have you 
not been over-zealous in the discharge 
of your diabolical duties? the reader may 



=» 



20 Wliere are my Horns? 

naturally inquire, Whereupon I answer: 
The number of examples are only in pro- 
portion to the ignorance and perversity 
which necessitate them. Besides, it is a 
law of nature that the many should suffer 
for the one, and vice versa. Look at the 
number of souls of all kinds which perish 
for the one that lives. Behold the battles 
of the trees, of the insects, of all the varied 
inhabitants of the land and sea, for life and 
a place to live in. Life seems to subsist 
only upon death, so great is the destruc- 
tion which attends it. The weaker germs 
of all kinds die; and, in dying, give the 
survivors new life and health. The Many 
die that the One may live, — the plants 
as well as the planets, the individual 
man as well as the race to which he be- 
longs. Each survives according to its na- 
tive power. It has been truly said, w To 
them that have shall be given, and from 



A Strange Source of Joy. 21 

them that have not, even that which they 
have shall be taken away." The farmer 
takes the little his poorer fields produce, 
and gives unto his richer. Not only the 
land of the inferior races is taken away 
from them and given unto the superior, but 
their life also is a forfeit to their foes. The 
rich grow richer, the poor grow poorer, until 
w that which they have not," viz., their life, 
all that remains to them is taken away, and 
given unto the rich. The poorer seeds, in 
dying, help fertilize the soil for the better. 
It is even the same with the mustard seed, 
which heaven is said to be like, as with the 
acorns of the oak-forest; for the one that 
lives and attains a fair and flourishing 
growth, myriads perish. And is it not right 
that this should be, and good to know it? 
I smile, therefore, as the weak and unfaith- 
ful of all kinds come tumbling down into 
outer Darkness, and praise in my own way 



22 Where are my Horns 9 

the "Wisdom which thus disposes of them. 
The Church has wofully erred in her 
theory of my advent into the practical 
world. She maintains, " I fell from Heaven, 
the victim of a mistaken ambition." But 
what can you expect from poor, insufficient 
human reason, as represented by infallible 
popes, and hireling priests and parsons? 
What a gross perversion of a great truth! 
Was it a crime, that I, once being next in 
power to the Supreme Being, should long 
for, and aspire to, a share in his omnipo- 
tence? Doubtless, at that time, I was al- 
ready high enough in the social scale of 
Heaven to have satisfied the ambition of the 
Church herself, had she been placed in the 
same circumstances. But I thought differ- 
ently, and consequently rendered her exist- 
ence necessary. I was like a man of genius 
in want of an opportunity for the further 
display of his gifts. 'T is true, I might 



Heaven Favors the Self-reliant. 23 

have stayed and sung songs in Heaven, from 
everlasting to everlasting, with other happy 
angels, having no ambition beyond waving 
the chief orchestral wand upon which I re- 
member Gabriel to have cast longing eyes. 
But I was made for better things, paradoxi- 
cal as it may seem, and having since striven 
for them, I am now in a fair way to realize 
them. 

The Most High, the pulpit will be as- 
tonished to hear, looked upon my ambition 
with great indulgence, notwithstanding the 
humiliations I seem to have suffered in this 
world, and could not help inspiring Milton, 
Goethe, and others to elevate my name a 
little from the disrepute into which it had 
been allowed to fall, for certain wise pur- 
poses. Heaven, permit me to assure you, 
is extremely fond of a self-reliant and inde- 
pendent spirit. She prefers a brave Turk 
to a cowardly Christian, as I can testify 



24 Where are my Horns? 

from my intercourse with the damned. 
O, Lucifer, said the Deity to me, after 
my repeated endeavors to make myself 
equal with Him, verily thou hast dared 
much, and much shalt thou receive in good 
time. But thou wistest not yet the terrible 
conditions which thou must fulfil ere thou 
canst reach the glorious object of thy de- 
sires. To be like me, to be one with me in 
my omnipotence, it is first necessary for 
thee to serve me with all thy might in the 
manner which I shall dictate to thy con- 
science and reason alone. But for my sake 
I beg thee to be natural in thy obedience 
to my will, no matter how iniquitous thou 
appearest to some, for I cannot bear the 
forced and artificial airs of resignation for 
which a certain piety is remarkable. De- 
scend, then, upon the Earth, that sickly look- 
ing little constellation on the " extreme left, 
and put thyself into rapport with the order 



A Diabolical Commission. 25 

that I have just established there. In re- 
gard to the creature which calleth itself man, 
thy mission shall be to teach it the fatal 
realities of darkness and sin by the very 
spectacle thereof, so that it shall fly there- 
from in great dismay; and this thou shalt 
do, even if thou hast to destroy it in so 
doing. Thou wilt now find it a savage, 
and happy as such, content to grovel 
in the chaos out of which it is as yet 
scarcely evolved, — as is every other spark 
of the divine fire before it is blown into a 
flame by the breath of Knowledge. See, 
therefore, that it realizes what it is and what 
are its capacities, even at the expense of 
what it calleth its Eden, namely, its savage 
contentment and ease. Make it eat of the 
fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good 
and evil, which it shall typify by my name 
and thine. Verily, thou shalt fare ill at the 
hand of mankind, — so ill that thou shalt 



26 Where are my Horns? 

often cry aloud in the anguish of thy heart. 
But be comforted; I shall be with thee in 
the hour of affliction, doing through thee 
good which I were unable to do alone. 
And although in the eyes of the ignorant 
we shall seem at emnity with one another, 
we shall, nevertheless, be heartily in unison, 
forming a unity which shall be a mystery to 
all but the elect. And the greater the evil 
thou shalt do, the greater the good that 
shall be born thereof. Fare thee well, thy 
humility shall be thy exaltation. 

I must apologize to my enlightened reader 
for being so anthropomorphic in my state- 
ments ; for I as well as the Church, am obliged 
to be so, in order to adapt myself to the civ- 
ilization which thinks there is no God or 
Devil, unless he appears in the form of a 
man. This piece of sincerity on my part 
ought to make me appear to better advan- 
tage than certain ecclesiastics. But what 



The Greatest Martyr. 27 

can we expect from those who call them- 
selves worms, miserable sinners, and the 
like, complimenting very poorly, as it seems 
to me, the Deity upon His noblest work, 
man. 

I hardly think, however, as I return to 
myself, that I ought to be so critical, con- 
sidering the bad repute I am in. For who 
will believe the Father of Lies, or even have 
the patience to hear a word in his defence? 
I must therefore adhere as closely as I can 
to palpable facts, and submit myself to the 
average intelligence, trusting to its further 
development for recognition, if I fail to 
receive it now. Thy God has given me a 
lesson in this respect. How many thousand 
years had to elapse before people learned to 
call him father. My sufferings have been 
so great for the final welfare of humanity, 
I have often compared myself with the so- 
called redeemer of men, Jesus of Nazareth. 



28 Where are my Horns? 

But his sufferings were transient, while 
mine have been eternal. According to tra- 
dition, and to nothing else that I know of, 
he was the omnipotent God himself, incar- 
nate for a season to redeem man from the 
consequences of original sin. If he was, 
there is no truth in the comparison which I 
have just suggested. For what merit is 
there — I follow the logic of story — in 
making a mistake, * in taking one's own time 
to rectify it, and only doing so for the 
sake of one's own glory? Dwell on this 
for a moment, and then return to me, the 
abused, the abased, the continually afflicted 
Devil, who, notwithstanding the trials, 
persecutions, and curses which have 
attended his career, persists in so temper- 
ing the Light of Perfection with darkness 
that one can bear it and live. For as night 
is necessary to make day possible, so am I, 

* And it repented the Lord that he had made man upon 
earth, and it grieved him to the heart. Gen. vi. 6. 



The Devil an Artist. 29 

Evil itself personified, necessary for the 
being of Goodness; I am virtually the 
shady side of God, and yet I, who occupy 
so important a position in the divine econ- 
omy, do not get a single word of praise or 
acknowledgment for my services, save 
from those who are ignorant of what they 
are doing! 

Before I cease, dear reader, I must first 
tell thee of one or two of my methods of 
benefiting mankind. Be it, therefore, 
known that I am an artist, one, the One, 
who devotes himself exclusively to the 
painting and sculpture of the dark side of 
Life. I rejoice in the most horrible subjects, 
and in this respect I am the most faithful 
historical artist. My methods, however, 
may be different from those of most of my 
brethren in art. Enter my studio and ob- 
serve for yourselves. Experience will 
unlock the door. Wickedness, you now 



30 Where are my Horns? 

see, takes every conceivable form, and I 
f portray in each. Look at the crudest and 
most tangible forms which it assumes, for 
instance, in the person of the tyrant, the 
drunkard, the glutton, the liar, and the thief 
— is it not enough to make you realize the 
value of virtue? And look, also, at the 
loathsome pictures of disease and misery 
which I am obliged to paint, as the conse- 
quence of its appearance in any form, 
whether crude or refined, tangible or intan- 
gible. There is a tradition to the effect 
that the devil marks his own, by the imprint 
of his finger upon the brow, as in the case 
of the Bostonian,* whom I am finally repre- 
sented as carrying off to hell with great 
glee. Well so I do, but not only upon the 
brow do I mark them, but also on every 
part of the body, from the sole of the foot 
to the crown of the head, which I some- 
times render prematurely bald, to indicate 

* Thomas Walker. 



The Devil an Artist. 31 

intemperance in the family. All the homely 
features, the general ugliness of the person, 
the pot belly, the habitual frown, red nose, 
in short every deviation from the line and 
color of beauty is my mark, inasmuch as it 
indicates sin, and the surrender of the liv- 
ing soul into my hands for the punishment 
it deserves, and I glory in my art, — for 
how else can wickedness be counteracted 
save by the realization of its own vileness? 
Punishment's only object is to render itself 
superfluous. To this end I actually wield 
the pencil and chisel of Nature in the deline- 
ation of the horrible and detestable; and I 
praise, instead of reviling, as theologians 
maintain, the Providence that so commis- 
sioned me. No one, be he who he may, can 
depart a single hair's-breadth from the path 
of rectitude, or infringe, in the smallest de- 
gree, upon the laws of Nature, without being 
drawn by me in his sin, and in his degra- 



32 Where are my Horns? 

elation. Who is not more or less marked 
like Cain, although the mark be hidden 
from the world? Who painted that clergy- 
man's nose red, and sprinkled his face with 
pimples? I, — because he drinks too much 
wine, and eats as unctiously as he prays? 
What makes his sermons and his services so 
wondrously narcotic, that we all succumb 
to their soothing influence notwithstanding 
the discomfort of the old-fashioned pews? 
The pressure of my hand upon his brain, 
because he not only ate late suppers, but 
fatigued himself adapting himself to the 
fashionable society in which he lives, moves, 
and has his being. What makes that lady, 
who, were it not for her simpering vacancy, 
would be beautiful, appear so languid and 
insipid? My pencil, because she thinks more 
of flounces and courtship, than the virtues 
and graces which would make her bright 
and attractive. What makes those respect- 



The Devil an Artist. 33 

able members of society in yonder corner 
so dull and joyless in expression? The 
pressure of my hand upon their hearts, 
which have been hardened by Avarice. 
And before they know it, the fate of Midas 
is upon them ; and the very weeds on their 
graves, long after they have been laid 
therein, whisper the story of their shame. 
But why must I say so much in explanation 
of my pictures? The object thereof is ob- 
vious ; you will surely see it, if Vice has not 
already made you blind. O, victims of your 
vanities and follies, when will you cease to 
require the services of so dreadful an artist 
as I am, to portray you thus, first in the en- 
joyment of your petty indulgences, and then 
in the misery and destitution of soul con- 
sequent thereon. What, let me ask you, is 
the object of your existence? Is it base, 
bad, indifferent? If so, behold yourselves 
portrayed by me in the attainment of the 






34 Where are my Horns? 

same, and in its consequences. But please 
yourselves; it will be all right in the end. 
Better men will be taught by your folly. 
I earnestly trust people shall soon see their 
mistake in submitting themselves to my art 
in so reckless a manner; indeed, I know they 
shall, for my supernatural exertions cannot 
be for naught. At present I only deplore 
the superstition which makes them afraid 
of my name, and yet so friendly to my art. 
They identify me with a host of purely 
mythical monsters, and will not pause for 
a moment to contemplate me as I am. At 
the very mention of my name they run 
panic-stricken, sometimes right into my 
arms, and do not know it, so great is the 
blindness of their pious fear. They are 
possessed by the apprehension that I shall 
devour them like a hungry lion, no matter 
whether they merit such a fate or not. 
They ignore the fact entirely that I only 



The Devil an Artist. 35 

come like the plague, to admonish them 
that it is high time to attend to the laws 
of health. Hence, failing to see the dark 
scenes which I paint for their benefit, they 
oblige me, by reason of their obstinate per- 
versity, to exhibit them in an attitude 
and mien still more ridiculous than those 
in which I find them at first. 

As yet, my friends, I have only spoken 
of myself as illustrated by a sentinel and 
artist, and not by a member of any other 
profession or calling, which task still re- 
mains for me to do, if I have not said 
enough to vindicate myself in my relations 
to both God and man. But come what 
may, it is all the same to me. Whatever 
is, is right. 







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